Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Poetry with Wings

As if on cue, the Canada Geese started flying past our property on the first day of Fall. While it is true that their arrival heralds the coming winter, I still enjoy their passing. There is something awesome about them with their tight formations and thrum of their wings.

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Since we came home from camping on Monday, the sun has been shining and the temperatures have been warm. The forecast for the week – temps in the early 20’s (70F ish).  A nice temperature no matter the season, but especially wonderful this time of year!

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Yesterday I attended Jo Ellen’s retirement party. She was my boss for many, many years (and a great one at that), as well as a good friend. Now she will truly be “just” a friend as she sheds the remains of 30+ years of working in the guv. We worked together for, oh gosh, it must be at least 26 years!  Jo Ellen is the last of our “group” to retire – Congratulations and welcome to the retired life. Now we’ll be able to get together for coffee or lunch whenever we wish :-) 

On our way home from the festivities we stopped at Sears to pick up a grill press thing-a-ma-bob. My thoughts are that I’ll be able to grill vegetables (as well as yummy sandwiches) on this and we’ll be able to unload the bbq from the camper. Last night I grilled portabella mushrooms, zucchini, red pepper, then layered them on a naan, topped a tiny bit of cheese, then another naan. I popped the whole thing back into the grill press for a few minutes. Oh what a delight! Yum, yum and yum. And doing the vegetables was EASY and fast :-)  Tonight I’ll be grilling green beans. If they turn out I’ll be really pleased.

Yesterday was also Tuesday, which means Dance Class! Yippee! Last night we “learned” the Fox Trot. Oh my. After a quick review of the Cha Cha we started learning the new steps of the FT. As I stood there watching the instructor move his feet – one, two, step to the side, step back – I was laughing, rolling on the floor laughing, in my head. How could a little series of steps be so darn hard to learn??? How stunned are we? Well, we tried our best and were soon zig zagging (and sometimes ouch zagging as we stepped on each others feet), around the dance floor. I have no idea how others were doing as all my attention was focused on Carm and I. But we had fun and laughed at ourselves a lot.

Back to today – the sun is shining (as I think I mentioned). Looking out of the kitchen window this morning I saw a few turkey vultures (why do I want to keep calling them condors?) circling in the sky. Cool.

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Later, when I was out in the backyard, I could see well over a dozen of them drafting the breeze over the creek. Was there something dead or dying down there? I don’t know, but watching them with their slow, easy flight was thrilling. (btw – I brought Spike inside – I’m pretty sure they don’t do any killing themselves, but with so many of them I didn’t want to take a chance!).

Just looked out the window and could see 3 of them perched on fence posts in the pasture. A peer through the binoculars revealed that they had just had a bath and were drying their wings in the sun. They are huge! The binoculars gave me a really good look at them as they preened themselves. Awesome! (too bad I didn’t have a really good telephoto lens!)

 

The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.

Charles Baudelaire

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